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Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Yesterday, we had our newborn/family photo session with Stephanie Fisher, the amazing photographer who took Liam's newborn photos. Not only am I so excited to see the shots of Jack in some really cute little hats, but I also can't wait to see the shots of me & my boys-- a new family of four!

(This pic was posted on FB yesterday-- we should see a few more shots on her blog in the next day or so, then our online gallery will be available to view in a few weeks. I'll update this post when there are more to see, hopefully tomorrow!)

Saturday, November 26, 2011

My post is a few days late because we didn't celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday this year-- My brother and his fiancee had to work on Thanksgiving day, so we delayed our big meal until last night so that they could join us.

We had a delicious dinner with all of our traditional foods: smoked turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, sweet potato casserole, dressing and rolls. (We don't even bother making dessert because we eat so much everything else!) I even enjoyed a few glasses of red wine. Yum.

I love Thanksgiving. While it's often hectic trying to prepare the meal, it doesn't carry the stress of Christmas-- no shopping, wrapping, stress about money or traveling-- just family and food and fun.

This year, I have been unbelievably blessed and have so much to be thankful for.

I have wonderful friends & family who check on us, offer to help, hold our babies, bring us dinners, and constantly show their love for us. (It amazes me that a family our size has remained so close, despite our hectic lives. Though we did small individual family Thanksgiving celebrations this year, we'll all be together again at Christmas. I can't wait. The baby boom that's happened in the last 14 months will make this year extra special.)

I have wonderful parents who are so involved in our lives and who help us in so many ways, from fixing things around our home to helping us care for our kids. (I've never seen any grandparents who love their grandchildren more!)

I have a husband who is great with our children, amazing at keeping up with things at home, works incredibly hard at his job and at grad school & always makes me laugh.

And, I have my boys.

My Liam, who I'm constantly in awe of... so smart, so inquisitive, so funny, so amazing. I never thought I could love so much.

And, my Jack, the best surprise of my life...I never knew that my heart could double...Love doesn't divide. It multiplies.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Before Jack came along, we still saw Liam as a baby-- but now that little brother has taken on that role, it's easy to see that Liam is ALL toddler (which thrills me and kills me at the same time). One of his favorite things to do is to take walks down our street with Daddy. Rob used to carry him and answer all of Liam's questions as he pointed to a new object and asked, "What's that?" every five seconds.

He's been walking for about six weeks, but over the past few weeks, he's become more & more steady on his feet.
Monday, Daddy & Liam went on their first walk where Liam walked down the street all
by himself! He had such a great time, he cried when he had to come inside.

Monday, November 21, 2011

*Warning: This is super long, so if you aren't interested in all of the birth details, just skip to the pics at the end!*

***********************

It’s seems pretty apropos that the little man whose
conception was a surprise, would also have an unexpected birth date.

Back in March when we found out our due date, I thought,
“Oh, wow! Wouldn’t it be cool to have a baby on 11/11/11?” but seeing that my
due date was 10 days past that, I didn’t think there was any chance that would
happen. (Liam didn’t arrive until his forced eviction at 41 weeks, so I had no
reason to think that this baby would be a week & a half early.)

But, as my blood pressure rose over the past few weeks and I
made multiple trips to Labor & Delivery, I realized that it was likely that
I’d end up delivering early. Especially when one doctor said he didn’t want me
to go past my due date and another said she didn’t want me to go past 39 weeks.

Last Monday (Nov 7), when I made my semi-weekly trek up to the ob’s
office to get checked and have my Non-Stress Test to see how Jack was
tolerating everything, my (old) doctor said that she wanted to go ahead and
schedule my induction. I asked if we could do it on Friday (Nov 11) and she
said that she wanted to push it to Tues (Nov 15) because she’d be out of the
office until then. I mentioned several times that I was comfortable with having
another doctor deliver me, but she stuck with Tues, saying that she wanted to
be there. (Which, I have to say, amused me. She didn’t care whether she was
there for Liam’s birth. I’m not sure why it was so important this time.) She
asked me to go ahead and schedule an appointment to be monitored on
Thursday—which I did, with the new doctor I’d been seeing.

Thursday morning, I met my parents at a shopping center
close by so that they could take Liam for the afternoon. The plan was to go to
my appointment, then come home and do a few last minute things around the
house. I still had a few casseroles to make, some things to wash and a nap to
take! As I was pulling out of the parking lot, I started to have some visual
disturbances (aura) like I do when I get migraines. I had a bad feeling about
it, so I took out my blood pressure cuff and checked—it was 150/110. When I got
to my appointment, the nurse checked it & it was still 145/104. The doctor
immediately sent me down to labor and delivery to be monitored.

Thursday night was a full moon and L&D was already a
madhouse at 10:30am. Triage was full and I had to wait almost an hour for a
room to be cleaned for me. (I found out later that 21 babies were delivered
that night!) I got settled in and got hooked up to the monitors, then called
Rob and my parents to let them know what was going on. The doctor had said that
if my blood pressure didn’t go down, I would not be leaving the hospital
pregnant. But all I could do was wait…it went down in the early afternoon and I
thought I’d be going home. Then, it crept back up. (Probably unrelated, but I
threw up all day long. I had to take the monitors off, go to the bathroom, get
sick, then page the nurse to come back and hook me up. I think it was a stomach
virus—I threw up more than 10 times that day.) After nearly 7 hours in L&D,
my (new) doctor came in and told me that I’d be having a baby in the morning
& to rest up.

I made a list of things I’d need and sent Rob home to pack
my bag. (Oops, that was on the list of things to do Thurs afternoon!) I made a
few phone calls and settled in to eat my (hospital) dinner. Rob was feeling
sick (he was diagnosed with walking pneumonia the day we came home from the
hospital!) so I sent him home to sleep. There wouldn’t be any action that
night, so I didn’t think he needed to sleep on the hospital couch. I just told
home to come back in the morning.

Around 10pm they inserted Cervadil and I got a shot of
Phenergan to help with the nausea. It knocked me out. The next thing I knew, it
was 4:30am and the nurse was coming in to start my IV and take out the Cervadil.
At 5am, we started the Pitocin and at 6am my doctor came in and broke my water.
Just like with Liam, once my water was broken, the contractions got intense.
The difference was that I was a little over 1cm with Liam and this time I was
4cm. I made it 4 hours without needing the epidural with Liam. This time,
within the hour I went from whimpering through contractions to shaking I was in
so much pain.

By 8am, I was 6cm and 80% effaced. I got my epidural, but
immediately started feeling very off… I felt lightheaded, disoriented, dizzy
and extremely nauseated. Then, the blood pressure alarms started going off. The
epidural had caused my blood pressure to drop to 70/40. They started flushing
my IV lines with ephedrine, trying to bring it back up, but since I had a
history of HIGH blood pressure, they had to be careful not to overdo it. After
two doses, it started to come back up, but it was a scary 15 minutes or so
until it stabilized!

After letting the epidural take effect, the nurse asked me
what I could feel. I told her that I could feel something internally when I was
having contractions. At first it just felt uncomfortable but as contractions
got stronger, it became painful, almost like a pinching feeling. They called
the anesthesiologist back, who decided they needed to boost my epidural (which
thankfully, they can do by injecting meds into the line that was already
inserted). My nurse, in preparation for another drop in blood pressure, gave me
an intramuscular shot of ephedrine in the thigh—so strange, watching a needle
go into your leg when you can’t feel it.

Things settled down for a bit after that. I was
comfortable—talking and laughing. (I did not experience the shaking that I did with Liam’s epidural) and around
10am, I told the nurse that I was feeling a lot of pressure. She checked me and
announced that I was 10cm, 100% effaced and +3 station. Ready to push! Well,
not quite ready. We had agreed that both
of my parents would be in the room (as they were for Liam’s birth) and my aunt
would watch Liam… but no one was there yet! Everyone was on the way, but no one
thought that I’d progress so quickly. My aunt came to my room so that she’d be
ready to take Liam as soon as my parents got there. A few minutes later, they
arrived, got him settled and I started pushing.

I felt like I did at the very end of Liam’s birth—so much
pressure, I had to push and I was just certain that the baby would practically
fall out of me. He was right there!

Ummm, no.

I pushed three times with each contraction, resting in
between. I held the bed handles, I held my legs, I pushed my feet against the
stirrups, but I felt little progress. The nurse paged my doctor about a
“position check.” A few minutes later he came in, reached in to feel the baby’s
head and announced that he was sunny side up.

What is it about my kids, trying to come into this world
backwards?!

Flashing back to Liam’s birth, I asked if he could be
turned. The doctor tried several times to maneuver him to turn (I even felt a
pop in my pelvic bone as Jack’s head ground further into my pelvis) but it
couldn’t be done. Unlike Liam, Jack had dropped so far on his own, he was
wedged into position.

The doctor looked at me and said, “I can get him out, or you
can get him out. I want you to get him out… You want you to get him out. It’s
going to take a while and it’s going to be difficult, but I think you can do
it.”

So, I started pushing again. I thought that I had been
pushing as hard as I could before, but this time I blocked out everything else
in the room and tried to bear down as hard as I could. After a few pushes, I
started hearing some encouragement from Rob and my mom. They could see his
head! He had really dark hair! He was close to crowning! But I still worried.

After about 30 minutes, the nurse called the doctor again and I was concerned for a
minute that she was going to tell him that I couldn’t do it, but when he
arrived he sat down and let me know we were almost there. I pushed as hard as I
could, four times for every contraction. I pushed in between contractions. I
pushed until I was out of breath and shaking. I just pushed.

Finally, I heard Rob and my mom tell me that this was
it—that his head was almost out. They were cheering me on and encouraging me as
I made those final pushes that brought Jack into the world. I had begun to tear
and my doctor let me know that he was going to need to do an episiotomy to get
Jack out safely. (I really didn’t want one, but at that point, I just wanted to
get him out!!)

I gave one final push and Jack tumbled out quickly and quietly.
The doctor worked to suction his mouth for what felt like forever. He was down
between my legs and I couldn’t see him—I kept trying to sit up and lean
forward so that I could see him. Then, I heard that beautiful cry and he was swiftly placed on my
chest. I cried as I saw my second precious son for the first time. After a
minute, the nurse took him over to the warmer to wipe him off, weigh him, measure him, and wrap him up.

Just like I had with Liam, I lost a lot of blood after
delivery. I had warned the doctor that this was a problem last time. A new bag
of Pitocin was started to help me contract as the doctor stitched me up. Most
of my focus was watching everyone admiring Jack over in the warmer, but it was
a little scary hearing the doctor say that I was bleeding so heavy that he
couldn’t see what he was doing. Each time he raised his hands up to tighten a stitch, they
were covered in blood. It took a while (and he was very good about reassuring
me that I was ok!) but he got the bleeding under control.

The doctor shook hands with Rob and put his hand on my knee
and said, “That was tough. It takes a real woman to deliver a baby sunny side
up. Great job.”

Jack was swaddled and given back to me. My dad was snapping
pictures of Rob and I with him. My parents took turns holding him & Rob went
to find my aunt, who brought Liam back into the room to meet his baby brother
for the first time. (He was mildly interested.)

Jack was having some slight breathing problems, so I wasn’t
able to breastfeed him right away. He got a slight fever & his blood sugar
was low, so the nurses gave him a small bottle of formula—since I had planned
to breastfeed and formula feed, I was fine with this. His grunting stopped
later that night and I was able to get him to latch on without any problems.

This delivery was a totally different experience than my
first—it took about half of the time, my doctor delivered me and I loved having
him in the morning! We had all day to enjoy being with Jack & had friends
and family stop by and share our joy. I wasn’t so exhausted from a long labor
that all I wanted to do was sleep! I was up and walking around within 90
minutes of having him and later in the evening, I took a shower (& even
dried and curled my hair!) and changed into my own clothes to prepare for
visitors the next day. My nurses were fantastic (my nurses from Liam’s delivery
stopped in on Thurs night to say hello and wish me luck on Friday!) and overall
it was a really great experience.

Pics from Jack's birth:

I’ll update on how we’ve settled at home in an other
post—this one is long enough!!

Thursday, November 3, 2011

I've visited labor and delivery twice in the past 24 hours. No, I'm not in labor yet, but my body certainly feels like it's revolting against the 3rd trimester of this pregnancy. You know how sick we've all been-- I thought that towards the end of last week, we were all starting to get a little better.

Tues night, I got a headache-- a bad one that felt like a migraine. Since I'm not able to take my migraine meds, I took a Fioricet and hoped that I could sleep it off. No luck. I woke up with it yesterday and took another dose. Still no better. I took a 3rd dose around 5pm and decided to go check my blood pressure. One of the things my new doctor warned me about was a chronic severe headache and elevated blood pressure. So, when it was 156/95, I went ahead and called the on call doc, who told me to go straight to labor & delivery.

I was there about three hours-- blood work looked good, no protein in my urine and baby looked good on the monitors, so they focused on getting rid of my pain. They gave me a shot of Nubain and sent me home. The meds made me feel drunk and I threw up, but I slept ok after that.

This morning, I woke up with the headache. I called the doc, who asked me to check my blood pressure, then call them back. It was 150/101. Back to the hospital I went-- I was able to go to the office first, where I saw my old doctor. I had an internal-- I'm 2cm and 50% effaced. I had another ultrasound and everything was measuring perfectly. It's tough to determine whether elevated blood pressure is causing my headaches or if the pain of these headaches is causing my blood pressure to rise. Either way, she said she'd feel more comfortable having me monitored again today...so back to L&D I went.

My labs all came back normal and after a shot of Phenergan for the headache, I was sent home with orders to be on bed rest and to come back on Monday. My doctor mentioned (several times) that since I was full term, there wasn't much benefit to keeping me pregnant much longer. She said that they don't treat high blood pressure with meds this late in pregnancy-- the treatment is to get the baby out.

Additionally, I'm having horrible congestion with a bad cough that keeps me up all night-- same old, same old that's been plaguing me for the past 4 weeks. I'm convinced that my body just can't shake it because the pregnancy is using every bit of energy that my body has left. The doctor prescribed a Z-pack along with a prescription cough medicine. Rob went to pick them up tonight only to find that the nurse that I don't like never bothered to call them in-- even after checking twice today before I left the hospital. I'm furious & miserable.

As much as I really wanted to go into labor on my own, I'm bracing myself for scheduling an induction for sometime next week at Mon's appt. My body has already made more progress on it's own now that it had when I got my epidural at Liam's induction. The vital things that I felt like needed to be done, will be taken care of by the end of the weekend...everything else can wait. It might have to.

{About Me}

I'm a 37 year old single mommy to two boys. After struggling to get pregnant with my ex, my RE diagnosed me with anovulation due to hypothyroidism. With the help of Synthroid and Clomid, I welcomed my son Liam on 9/21/10. Little brother Jack followed on 11/11/11.